Oceanographer Dr. William Patzert, of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will discuss one of
the planet's most powerful climate phenomenon, El Nino, in a
live interactive web chat on March 15. He'll be taking
questions about when we might expect the next one with its
accompanying rains and floods and discussing the current
conditions in the Pacific.

The two-hour Internet event will begin at 11 a.m. Pacific
time (2 p.m. Eastern). The chat is part of a series sponsored
by the NASA Oceanography web site. To participate, log on to:

Dr. William Patzert has been a research oceanographer
with JPL for more than 18 years. He is especially well known
for his work with the TOPEX/Poseiden mission, a partnership
between the United States and France to monitor global ocean
circulation, discover the tie between the oceans and
atmosphere, and improve global climate predictions.
TOPEX/Poseiden's ability to measure sea-surface height has
made it an invaluable tool for studying ocean events such as
El Nino, its little sister La Nina and the much larger and
longer-lasting ocean event called the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation. Before joining JPL, Bill was a faculty member at
the University of California's Scripps Institution of
Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. He completed his Ph.D. in
oceanography at the University of Hawaii in 1972.